Week 8: Three articles and a whole lot of training.

 This week I wrote 3 articles,

One article I wrote was a rewrite of a press release of different state COVID-19 testing sites along with some background information. 

That can be found here: https://delawarelive.com/2020/10/27/state-releases-easy-peasy-list-of-covid-19-testing-sites-asks-public-to-test/

The other two articles I wrote were extensions of things I was working on last week finally coming to fruition. 

one of them was an article about a fetal-maternal Dr. who had received a lifetime achievement award.

That can be found here: https://delawarelive.com/2020/10/30/states-first-maternal-fetal-doc-honored-with-medical-societys-top-award/

The third article I worked on was an article that I had also been working on, but then dropped, and picked back up. 

It is mostly about how deer collisions are significantly higher in the last 3 months of the year because it is mating season. Originally, I interviewed a spokesperson from State Farm insurance for information about it. Some of the questions I asked regarded how deer populations could be higher because less people were hitting them in the spring due to covid, and how people still being uneasy about planes, thus traveling by car more this fall could affect those statistics for next year. 

Originally, I didn't find this story to be important and sat on it assuming that nothing would come of it. however, earlier this week DNREC put out a press release stating their worries about the deer, and so I combined what they said with what I found and it ended up being at least partially newsworthy. 

I think what I learned from this is that this work is kind of an ever-flowing thing. something that doesn't seem real newsworthy one week can be the next as a result of more information coming in. The articles that I write and work on don't stop at the end of the final sentence that I decided to write, and there's always something out there that could be added to a story. 

That article can be found here: https://delawarelive.com/2020/10/30/fewer-drivers-because-of-covid-could-mean-more-deer-on-road-now/


This week I also received training to operate two different sets of cameras for interviews, as Delawarelive.com pivots to video journalism at least partly. I worked hands-on with a backpack camera around the Christiana mall, learning how the camera bag worked and was put together and the different microphones for different circumstances. I will be using that camera this Tuesday to cover election polling places across the state. 

I also used a separate camera and set up to record an interview between my Editor, Betsy Price, and the owner of Delaware live, Chris Kenny, about the upcoming elections. 

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